Levergun loads: the .35 Remington

Guns Magazine, April, 2003 by John Taffin

1952 -- a truly wonderful year. Ike was elected -- president and I started high school a year ahead of time. To this day I'm not sure how I got Out of grade school early. That is, I have never figured out if I was smart enough to make the leap, or if my grade school teachers just wanted to get rid of me as fast as possible.

High school was a wonderful experience for me especially because of three old maid school teachers. My two English teachers always allowed me to write about hunting and the outdoors, and our school librarian had the shelves stocked with Theodore Roosevelt's books, all kinds of books on exploring and hunting, and even Robert Ruark's books. I first read Something Of Value by checking it Out of the school library.

Firing A Young Imagination

My three main sources of background material were found in Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. Each made their appearance on the high school library magazine rack each month. I was kept continually enthralled by writers such as Robert Ruark with his wonderful tales of The Old Man & The Boy. Corey Ford's Lower Forty, Shooting, Angling, and Inside Straight Club and all the member characters thereof. And, of course, Jack O'Connor's hunting exploits all over the world.

At this point in my life I had not yet really discovered the great joy of sixguns and most of my time was spent going through the pages of these magazines looking at the advertisements for rifles and planning my future hunts.

Something else of significance happened in 1952. Marlin chambered their Model 336 lever action for the .35 Remington cartridge.

The 336 arrived in 1948 as an improved version of the Model 36. However, it was chambered only in .30-30. The more potent .35 Remington originally saw the light of day before World War I, chambered in Remington's semiautomatic Model 8. Both the Remington rifles and the cartridge were very popular with woods hunters between the two World Wars. Now, Marlin had very wisely chambered the .35 Remington in a quality levergun.

Marlin had wonderful ads for their rifles in the magazines I spent so much time with in the early 1950s. Someday I would have a .35 Remington Marlin levergun... Someday.

Questing For A Big Bare

As my high school days ended, I soon discovered the joys of sixguns and all my early Marlins were chambered for sixgun cartridges. I still wanted that .35 Remington 336 someday. Well, "some-days" come and go all too quickly. The l950s became the 1960s, which even more quickly passed into the 1970s and 1980s and I still didn't own a Marlin chambered for the .35 Remington.

Finally, about ten years ago, I began looking earnestly for a straight gripped Marlin 336 chambered in the big .35. It was easy to find versions with a pistol grip buttstock, however that slick and trim little straight-gripped carbine eluded me. I even had several friends around the country looking on my behalf. We got nowhere.

At the time I had a place in the mountains 100 miles north of home and we would often go up there to camp out for the weekend. About 25 miles south of our place, a small combination gun and pawn shop opened up, however it was always closed when I went by. Then about five years ago, I found them open on Labor Day weekend.

Twenty Percent Off To Boot

We stopped in and looked around. A large sign heralded "Special Labor Day Sale -- 20 Percent Off Rifles." As I looked around I spotted a straight gripped Marlin 336 on the rack behind the counter.

"What is the old Marlin you've got back there?"

"Ahh, you don't want that one. It's not a .30-30. It's one of those Remington .35s,"

My spirit soared and my heart skipped a beat or two. I forced myself to calm down and with as little excitement as possible I asked to see the worthless old .35 Remington. It looked to be in great shape -- with only normal wear on the outside, a very smooth action, and a perfect bore.

I looked at the price tag. The amount was very reasonable even before taking 20 percent off. My search was over and that gun shop owner never knew what joy he gave that day.

Last Of Four

The .35 Remington is one of a quartet of rimless cartridges developed by Remington around 1906. The others were the .25, .30, and .32 Remington. The first rifle for which they were chambered, as mentioned, was the Model 8 semi-automatic. By the time Marlin chambered the 336 for the .35 Remington in 1952, Remington had chambered the cartridge in both pump and bolt action rifles, and Winchester had even offered the Model 70 in .35 Remington.

This makes this nearly 100 year-old cartridge one of the few that has been chambered in all four American made repeating rifles, semiautomatic, pump action, bolt action, and lever action.

Why did the .35 Remington survive when the other three Remington cartridges passed into oblivion? Winchester had the extremely popular Model 94 chambered in .25-35, .30-30, and .32 Winchester Special. Remington's three cartridges were simply rimless versions of the rimmed Winchester cartridges. They are so similar, in fact, that some early .30 Remington rifles are marked .30-30 Remington. That surely was very confusing for shooters.